Jabulani Ball Tutorial

I’ve written a new modeling tutorial that I’m excited to share.

Years ago, I was tasked with creating a detailed soccer ball for a client and knew that I would need to model in all of  the seams, since a bump map just wouldn’t hold up for any close-up shots. Fortunately, I was lucky enough to come across an amazing tutorial that took what could have been a difficult task and simplified the steps for me, resulting in a perfect final mesh.

Over the years, I have used this  technique anytime I have been called on to create a traditional soccer ball. Recently, I was tasked, yet again, with creating a variety of soccer balls -including one using the traditional black and white pattern. As the tutorial suggested, I started with a tessellated sphere and ended up with a sharp looking, fully-detailed traditional soccer ball.

I then started on the next soccer ball on my list which was the 2010 World Cup Jabulani Soccer Ball.  Unfortunately, starting with a tessellated sphere produced questionable results. It was time to head back to the drawing board.

The tutorial below, is the result of a day’s experimentation with the goal of creating easily reproducible results when modeling a 2010 soccer ball.

Click the image below to download a tutorial. (1.5MB PDF file)

Big thanks to Ben Vost, Jarrod Davis, Dave Maldonado and Chris O’Riley for tech checking the tutorial and giving valuable feedback and a special thanks to Matt Gorner for his amazing layout skills. Matt created the PDF and I think it looks amazing. Thanks guys!

Enjoy the tutorial and check back to the site for more goodies that are sure to follow.